Australian legal abbreviations

Today I learnt where to find Australian legal abbreviations.

Answer: Monash University Law Library’s legal abbreviation guide. Short and sweet today.

http://guides.lib.monash.edu/legal-abbreviations

SLS / BIALL Annual Academic Law Library Survey 2010/2011

Today I learnt how to bench-mark my academic law library (if I had one).

The report analysing the results of the SLS / BIALL Annual Academic Law Library Survey was published this week on the BIALL website. 95 academic libraries from the UK and Ireland took part in the survey and the data relate to the academic year 2010/2011. The report was compiled by David Gee, Deputy Librarian and Academic Services Manager at IALS.

The survey provides a snapshot of different aspects of the academic law library, including services provided, database subscriptions, acquisitions expenditure and staffing levels. The report also provides further analysis and commentary on how these results have changed year on year.

No surprises that the three most popular databases were Westlaw UK, Lexis Library and HeinOnline. More surprising is that expenditure on law materials per student in old universities was down 2% on 2010 whereas in new universities it was up 12% in the same period. For context on these and other trends you will need to read the report itself.

SLS / BIALL Annual Academic Law Library Survey 2010/2011 (BIALL Members only):

http://www.biall.org.uk/publications.php?action=publication&id=28

WhatDoTheyKnow

Today I learnt about a website called WhatDoTheyKnow that lets you make and view Freedom of Information requests.

Registered users can use the site to make Freedom of Information requests to cover 5790 authorities, ranging rom the Royal Mail, to local Councils, to Number 10.

You can run a keyword search across requests that have been made via the website, use date restrictions and also specify whether you want to see all requests, or just successful, unsuccessful or unresolved requests. Alternatively you can browse by the name of the authority.

Each request is available to view in full, along with the name of the name who made it, and the response. Each request is given a status, e.g. successful, partially successful, awaiting response, and so on.

I'm not sure how useful it will be in my day to day work, but it is highly addictive.

WhatDoTheyKnow:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/

Pre-2005 JCT Contracts available from Docdel

Today I learnt that pre-2005 JCT contracts are available to order from Sweet & Maxwell's Docdel service.

This doesn't include pre-1998 contracts unfortunately. (The one I needed was from 1963). It's good to keep in mind for the future though.

JCT's webpage on pre-2011 contracts:
http://www.jctltd.co.uk/pre-2011-contracts.aspx

caLIM - Current Awareness for Legal Information Managers Database

Today I learnt about caLIM (Current Awareness for Legal Information Managers Database).

caLIM, a database maintained by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Library, is based on the current awareness column in BIALL's Legal Information Management. Here's what it contains [this description is lifted directly from the database]:

The database contains bibliographic records for articles and books relevant to legal information professionals. December 1994 onwards.

You can search by author, title, free-text, category (subject index terms) and date.

caLIM on the IALS website:

http://193.62.18.232/dbtw-wpd/textbase/cadquery.htm

IALS Global Law Library homepage:

http://ials.sas.ac.uk/library/library.asp

FT.com's industry-specific weekday email alerts

Today I learnt that the FT offers daily industry-specific email alerts for corporate subscribers.

Corporate subscribers to the FT.com can sign up to weekday email alerts that provide headlines and links to relevant stories, blogs, videos and markets data for individual industry sectors. I think they may prove very popular with our lawyers. You can select from the following topics:

Aerospace & defence

Automobiles

Banking

Basic resources/mining

Corporate finance/M&A

Economics & finance

Energy

Fund/asset management

Global business

Industrial goods & services

Insurance

Management

Markets

Media

Pharmaceuticals & Health

Real estate

Regulation & compliance

Retail & consumer

Technology & science

Telecoms

Transport

Travel & leisure

World affairs & politics

http://www.ft.com/

Corporate subscribers can go to Alerts Hub to sign up.